HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal investigation into a sprawling betting scheme to fix basketball games stretched from the Chinese Basketball Association to the NCAA and has ensnared 26 people, including current and former college players, prosecutors revealed Thursday.

The charges filed in federal court in Philadelphia include bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy.

How did the scheme work?

A group of fixers, including gamblers, recruited players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. Those fixers would then bet against the players’ teams in those games, defrauding sportsbooks and other bettors, authorities said.

How did the players get paid?

In cash, hand-delivered by fixers after a game was successfully rigged, prosecutors say. That meant fixers flying into more than a dozen states to drop off cash to players on their campuses or while they were traveling between games.

How much money was involved?

Prosecutors didn’t say exactly how much the fixers allegedly received in ill-gotten gains. However, they said that the fixers wagered millions of dollars, generating “substantial proceeds” for themselves, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to players in bribes.

Payments to players typically ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 per game. Meanwhile, fixers put nearly $200,000 in bribe payments and shared winnings from two rigged Chinese Basketball Association games into one player’s storage locker in Florida, authorities said.

How many games were involved?

At least 29 NCAA games as recently as January 2025, the indictment said, plus two games in the Chinese Basketball Association.

Did any of the charged players compete this season?

Four of the players charged — Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Oumar Koureissi and Camian Shell — played for their current teams within the last few days, although the allegations against them don’t involve this season, but the 2023-24 season.

When did this start?

Fixers started in 2023 with the two games in the Chinese Basketball Association and, successful there, moved on to rigging NCAA games after that.

Who were the alleged fixers?

Six men primarily, prosecutors say. Three had connections to players through coaching and training, two were described as gamblers and sports handicappers, and one is former NBA player Antonio Blakeney, prosecutors say.

Is the investigation over?

The indictment suggests that many others, including unnamed players, had a role in the scheme but weren’t charged, and U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said the investigation was continuing.

How does this fit into broader concerns about sports gambling?

The indictment is the latest gambling scandal to hit the sports world since a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision unleashed a meteoric rise in legal sports betting. It follows a federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional basketball, NCAA lifetime bans on at least 10 basketball players for betting and two Major League baseball players facing federal charges that they took bribes to help gamblers.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An astronaut in need of doctors’ care departed the International Space Station with three crewmates on Wednesday in NASA’s first medical evacuation.

The four returning astronauts — from the U.S., Russia and Japan — are aiming for an early Thursday morning splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego with SpaceX. The decision cuts short their mission by over a month.

“Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said before the return trip, “but what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other.”

Officials refused to identify the astronaut who needed care last week and would not divulge the health concerns.

The ailing astronaut is “stable, safe and well cared for,” outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke said earlier this week via social media. “This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists.”

Launched in August, Cardman, Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov should have remained on the space station until late February. But on Jan. 7, NASA abruptly canceled the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke and later announced the crew’s early return. Officials said the health problem was unrelated to spacewalk preparations or other station operations, but offered no other details, citing medical privacy. They stressed it was not an emergency situation.

NASA said it would stick to the same entry and splashdown procedures at flight’s end, with the usual assortment of medical experts aboard the recovery ship in the Pacific. It was another middle-of-the-night crew return for SpaceX, coming less than 11 hours after undocking from the space station. NASA said it was not yet known how quickly all four would be flown from California to Houston, home to Johnson Space Center and the base for astronauts.

One U.S. and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting lab, just 1 1/2 months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.

Computer modeling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station every three years, but NASA hasn’t had one in its 65 years of human spaceflight. The Russians have not been as fortunate. In 1985, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin came down with a serious infection or related illness aboard his country’s Salyut 7 space station, prompting an early return. A few other Soviet cosmonauts encountered less serious health issues that shortened their flights.

It was the first spaceflight for Cardman, 38, biologist and polar explorer who missed out on spacewalking, as well as Platonov, 39, a former fighter pilot with the Russian air force who had to wait a few extra years to get to space because of an undisclosed health issue. Cardman should have launched last year but was bumped to make room on the way down for NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck nearly a year at the space station because of Boeing’s capsule problems.

Fincke, 58, a retired Air Force colonel, and Yui, 55, a retired fighter pilot with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, were repeat space fliers. Finke has spent 1 1/2 years in orbit over four missions and conducted nine spacewalks on previous flights, making him one of NASA’s top performers. Last week, Yui celebrated his 300th day in space over two station stays, sharing stunning views of Earth, including Japan’s Mount Fuji and breathtaking auroras.

“I want to burn it firmly into my eyes, and even more so, into my heart,” Yui said on the social platform X. “Soon, I too will become one of those small lights on the ground.”

NASA officials had said it was riskier to leave the astronaut in space without proper medical attention for another month than to temporarily reduce the size of the space station crew by more than half. Until SpaceX delivers another crew, NASA said it will have to stand down from any routine or even emergency spacewalks, a two-person job requiring backup help from crew inside the orbiting complex.

The medical evacuation was the first major decision by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman. The billionaire founder of a payment processing company and two-time space flier assumed the agency’s top job in December.

“The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority,” Isaacman said in announcing the decision last week.